THE BOOK OF SHE IS HERE.

Dear sisters,

For far too long, I was ashamed. Like all women, I faced challenge after challenge: my monthly cycles, love and heartbreak, perfectionism and self-doubt. As a sensitive, spiritually-driven woman, I suffered in secrecy, as my journey didn’t resemble the masculine model most spiritual lineages described.

I and the women I work with needed a new approach to feminine spirituality. One that honored our rhythms and cycles, our sacred bodies, and our deep, timeless inner wisdom.

We needed The Heroine’s Journey: signposts and practices to support us into the heart of feminine power.

Part memoir, part guidebook, The Book of SHE offers a new model for feminine spirituality. It will show you how to honor many facets of womanhood, from mythological underpinnings to cycles and seasons, to spiritual practices and the mundane tribulations of your daily life. Including signposts and catalytic practices for your Heroine’s Journey, this book will show you how to celebrate your challenges for what they are: rites of passage into greater feminine fullness.

Drawing on archetypes including Mary Magdalene, the Dark Goddess, and Green Tara, The Book of SHE guides you on a journey of psychological wholeness, empowerment, and full feminine spiritual awakening.

About the Author

Sara Avant Stover, a teacher of feminine spirituality and empowerment and a yoga and meditation instructor, bestselling author, and inspirational speaker, is the founder of The Way of the Happy Woman: a worldwide community based on the teachings and practices in her bestselling books, The Way of the Happy Woman and The Book of SHE.

As creator of the world’s first Women’s Yoga Teacher Training, the online program Reversing Our “Curse,” and The SHE School, Sara has taught tens of thousands of women worldwide. She has been featured in Yoga Journal, the Huffington Post, Newsweek, and Natural Health and on ABC, NBC, and CBS.

Sara’s teachings, writings, programs, and communities support women of all ages to place the Heroine’s Journey at the heart of their lives. She teaches on feminine spirituality, lifestyle, healing, relationships, and more.

Chapter Summaries

Introduction:

THE DARK SIDE OF THE WAY OF THE HAPPY WOMAN

Vignette: Mary Magdalene

Part I:

Preparing for the Journey

Vignette: Mother Mary

CHAPTER 1:

Leaving Your “Normal” Life

After living as a Father’s Daughter, aligning with patriarchal definitions of success and becoming pseudo-male in order to survive your family of origin, you discover worldly success (e.g., money, fame, status) by repudiating your femininity as weak, manipulative, or crazy. Then, burned out and disenchanted with outer success alone, you reach a major crossroads or suffer a life crisis that calls you to reconnect with your inner life and your feminine soul.

CHAPTER 2:

Entering Your Inner House

Here, you unlearn patterns of self-abuse and truly discover how to take care of your sensitive, feminine being. Entering the haunted house of your body, you begin to melt your Inner Ice Ceiling and come home to your real ground of being in your belly center.

CHAPTER 3:

Healing the Mother Wound

You begin to heal childhood trauma by using your own loving awareness to mother yourself, while turning your attention toward being unconditionally held and loved by the Mother Goddess.

CHAPTER 4:

Crafting a SHE-Centered Life

It’s time to gather the practices, values, and perspectives needed to build your entire life upon your feminine nature. Since outer recognition no longer reigns supreme, you articulate your deepest life intentions before embarking on the journey.

Part II:

The Descent

Vignette: Emily Dickinson

CHAPTER 5:

Dancing with the Dark Goddess

You descend into the underworld and adjust your eyes to discern between the “two types of darkness.” You meet the Dark Goddess, your demons, and your shadow behavior, while ventilating your secrets and owning your projections.

CHAPTER 6:

Ending the War Within

Unmasking your demons to discover the true faces of your inner saboteurs, you meet your greatest allies. You start to take back the power in your dark side.

CHAPTER 7:

Unlocking the Magic in Your SHE Cycles

Here, you discover how to create your new, SHE-centered life from your own sacred anatomy. You participate in the mini–Heroine’s Journey of death and rebirth that happens through your monthly lunar and hormonal cycles, and you use these cycles as trainings in how to gracefully weather life’s challenges.

CHAPTER 8:

Meditating on Your Mortality

Prepare for your greatest rite of passage of all — your death, and the deaths of those you love most — through dying each month on the new moon and the first day of your cycle. Live a life without regret through respecting the wisdom in your perimenopause and menopause. Activate your Inner Crone to help you shed old agendas and identifications, completely “see” and trust the darkness of your inner world above all else, and create the life that’s right for you.

Part III:

The Initiation

Vignette: The Golden Dakini

CHAPTER 9:

Unveiling the Sacred Heart of Real Feminine

This is the portion of your metamorphosis where you and your “old” life become completely unrecognizable. You struggle with immense fear and doubt, addictions resurface, and the power of your inner darkness begins to overpower your light. Invite in the “Dakini principle” of magic and uncertainty to tip the scale away from death and toward rebirth. Stay with the process and surrender to the Mother Goddess. Die fully to your past self and your ego’s plan for your life. In the burial ground of your own sacred heart, let go 100 percent or die.

Part IV:

The Ascent

Vignette: The Temple Priestess

CHAPTER 10:

Turning On Your Brights

The light starts pouring back in, and you’re ready for your resurrection. You commune with your ecstatic nature, learn to “be the lover” in every situation, and step into your real edge, your Golden Shadow.

CHAPTER 11:

Marrying the Divine Masculine

Now you’ll find true integration by distinguishing between the Patriarch and the Divine Masculine. By activating Father Love to heal your relationship with the masculine, inner and outer, you create the structures and boundaries needed to protect your vulnerable, feminine core. Through this, you experience the Sacred Marriage and become a sovereign Virgin, able to skillfully activate both masculine and feminine energies.

CHAPTER 12:

Birthing Your Beautiful Life

When you unearth the genius of your magical, inner child, you open to your innate creative potential, and dream a new dream for your life. After calling upon your inner family to cultivate harmony and cohesion in enacting it, you open to receive the blessings and celebration of a successful journey.

Part V:

The Homecoming

Vignette: Princess Tara

CHAPTER 13:

Becoming a Whole and Holy Heroine

Here, it’s your turn to test your insight by returning to your roots and serving your family and community. We also meet an inspiring role model who embodies the full spectrum of our journey — from psychological wholeness to spiritual freedom. Last, we remember our ultimate homecoming: full realization of our essential nature and union with the Feminine Face of God, beyond gender, concepts, space, and time.

Praise for The Book of SHE:

What a truthful, beautifully written guide for women seeking a feminine path to wholeness. Sara Avant Stover offers herself in these pages, and I devoured them!

Jennifer Louden

author of The Life Organizer and The Woman's Comfort Book

Women’s bodies and minds are different from men’s, and the best way toward a healthy, satisfying life is to embrace that difference. Provocative and thorough, The Book of SHE explores the mystery and alchemy of what it means to be a woman. Sara Avant Stover will guide you toward reclaiming the power and beauty of your own amazing body in this groundbreaking book.

Sara Gottfried, MD

author of The Hormone Cure

Sara Avant Stover has created the ultimate emotional journey road map for a woman to reclaim what is sacred about her. This book weaves together stories from our feminine spiritual heritage with practical strategies to facilitate healing your feminine spirit. It’s an inner journey that ultimately allows you to live a soul-centered and passionate life!

Alisa Vitti

author of WomanCode and founder of www.FLOliving.com

Sara Avant Stover knows that to give form to your dreams, you must recover your feminine field. Instead of tracking linear pathways for success, The Book of SHE calls for embodying your sacredness. Stover has created a priceless map for how to live from the beauty you contain.